Whoa! Hold Up, Husky Stadium: A Re-rebuttal

Seth and I have been having an online debate over the plan to rebuild Husky Stadium, at a cost of $250 million. Here's Seth's pro view, my con, and his rebuttal. 

To recap--fairly, I hope--Seth's rebuttal, his point is that the University of Washington does not need to consider the city of Seattle's druthers when it comes to their stadium.

So the argument that it's better for the city as a whole if Qwest Field gets twice as much usage on weekends is neither here nor there. I'll accept that, with the reservation that most Husky football attendees live in and around Seattle and therefore are concerned about the city's health and welfare--if not during home games.

I know that we now accept it as status quo, but has anyone wondered what the city's cost of Montlake hosting 60,000 to 70,000 weekend visitors is? (And no, revisionists, it wasn't always thus. Husky Stadium seating has experienced significant scope creep; it began life with 30,000 seats.) 

But of course, I'll also need Seth to demonstrate to me how football meets any of a major research university's educational needs, when the money raised by football programs tends to stay exclusively within football programs. It's a dead horse of an argument, I know, but I'm not willing to concede the inch to college football "mystique." That it is enormously popular doesn't automatically mean it advances a university's mission. It's just a lot of fun. 

People have also been quick to note--though I established this in my initial post--that the UW ICA plans to raise its funds through private donations and increased prices, borne by Husky game-goers. Ergo, STFU, QED. In this, they're a little like tunnel boosters, who like to claim that the state's contingency for cost overruns rules out the question of cost overruns--but there is no Plan B if something goes terribly wrong. 

In the Husky stadium's case, the problem is that the economy already has gone terribly wrong, and yet the plan is to extract $200 million from higher prices. I don't think the UW has gone public with those exact increases. (Here, I'm happy to point you to Seth's post about how it's now cheaper to fly to Seattle for a Yankees game than attend in the new stadium, and to someone raising similar concerns to mine at Berkeley.)

I'm told the UW ICA is responsible for the debt. How is the ICA doing? Here is athletic director Scott Woodward announcing the end of their swimming teams in 2009:

We are clearly operating in a time of economic distress and we are forced to make decisions that will help us maintain long-term financial stability. The state is reducing its funding of higher education at the highest rate in the country. The increase in the cost of tuition, combined with the decreased return on the university's endowment investments, will add considerable expense to the cost of our scholarships. Since we are a self-sustaining operation with no funding assistance from the university or the state, we must find ways to reduce expenses and increase revenues in these difficult times.

So...not awash with cash reserves. What happens if revenues are off by ten percent the wrong way? Would it be fair to say that the UW is betting the existence of the whole athletics program on the new venue?

I can't claim to be a lifelong Husky fan, though I do attend games occasionally. I also go to Seahawks games. I don't know that I have a preference in stadiums, though I do find Qwest easier to get to and from. It may well be that the opportunity to play at Qwest only looks good from a certain angle, but that when you factor in practices and equipment, and other uses, the move becomes moot. But I have not found the UW Regents being particularly transparent or forthcoming about the alternatives. Nor have I seen anyone defend the amazing amount of price elasticity discovered during the most significant economic downtown since the Great Depression.

Qwest pulling double-duty may offend Bow-Down-to-Washington sensibilities, but that's before sticker shock. I'll be curious to see what happens if bleeding purple isn't enough to afford seats.